


Turning Home Again

by finnimbrand



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-02
Updated: 2015-05-02
Packaged: 2018-03-28 17:43:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,592
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3863899
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/finnimbrand/pseuds/finnimbrand
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Steve Rogers, The Avengers, post-AoU.  Reaction and exploration of themes from the movie.  Spoilers for Avengers:  Age of Ultron.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Turning Home Again

**Author's Note:**

> I've only seen AoU once, and it was pretty full of stuff. I apologize for any mistakes.

"What about Hill?" Natasha asked.

Steve looked at her, not sure what she was talking about. "What about Hill as our external liaison?" Natasha repeated patiently. "For the new Avengers facility. Fury's off again, and she's at a loose end."

Steve relaxed in one way, but something inside of him coiled a little tighter too. For a second, he'd thought Natasha was talking about dating Maria Hill, but Natasha had been all business since Bruce Banner had left.

"Sounds good," he said. He hesitated, but there was something he needed to say. "I think Dr. Banner will be back eventually," he said. "Maybe not as an Avenger, but..."

"He's not coming back to me," Natasha said flatly. "I did what needed to be done, and that has a price." 

They stood together in silence for a moment. "You understand that, don't you?" Natasha asked. "Sometimes the personal isn't the most important thing, sometimes the stakes are too high. That's when you use all the weapons you have, even the ones that hurt people."

"I understand," Steve said.

"He wants the kind of home Clint has," Natasha said eventually. "He wants it badly. I've known that since the beginning, since I recruited him for The Avengers. He said he doesn't always get what he wants."

Steve listened.

"But we could have been home for each other," Natasha said.

"After the war changes you, you can't go home again," Steve said.

 

"I was just visiting Vision," Tony Stark said with a smirk. Steve wasn't sure what he had to smirk about, until Tony added, "He seems to be fitting right in. You'd almost think he was designed to be a perfect team player."

Oh yeah, with Tony Stark, everything was a competition, and if he couldn't win, he'd make something that could. He thought he'd created the perfect successor, and fixed all his flaws by proxy.

"Funny, when Bruce and I were both... not exactly perfect team players," Tony added, and Steve was forced to revise his thoughts. Vision wasn't just Tony's creation, and Tony sounded oddly bereft. 

"You're always welcome here," Steve said, instead of the set-down that had been forming in his head, the one Tony was probably expecting.

Tony gave Steve a narrow look. "I knew it! You miss me, don't you? You miss having someone to argue with. And you have to admit that I was better at keeping the team from going stale than any of your new recruits. You'll never replace me."

Steve was kind, he didn't tell Tony what he was really thinking, that Tony would be back if they ever needed him badly enough. You couldn't _really_ retire from the Avengers. "The new recruits are shaping up well," he said. "Including Vision."

"You'll make a team out of them yet," Tony said. "You've got good material to work with. Don't be soft on Rhodey, by the way. He can take it."

"Understood," Steve said, smiling.

"And Vision -- " Tony said. "Don't be fooled, he's not even mostly mine. Bruce and I balanced each other out, and created something better than either of us could have done alone."

Steve was reminded again that Tony was missing his best friend.

Steve clapped Tony on the shoulder. "We'll find him," he said. "If he ever wants to be found."

 

"And Wanda can create an updraft that's stronger than anything natural," Sam said excitedly. Sam loved being an Avenger. "Wait until I show you, you'll want to work that into the playbook."

"Got it," Steve said, pulling out his notebook. It wasn't movies and cultural phenomena any more, it was all about the team now. These new Avengers were all enthusiastic, and they worked together from the start. Maybe that was the legacy of the hard work the original Avengers had done, proving that strong-minded, talent people could make an even stronger team. The new Avengers never doubted the team, and all Steve and Natasha had to do was point them in the right direction. They did the rest.

Steve was proud of them.

Sam got more serious after Steve had made his note.

"I heard a rumor about Bucky..." he said. But it was the same rumor they'd heard before a dozen times, and it had never panned out. By the seventh repetition of the pattern, Steve had begun thinking that Bucky was doing it on purpose. Proving he'd never be caught by deliberately dropping clues that led no where, the jerk.

"Hey man, don't you want to investigate?"

Steve was silent.

"Why don't you make it a training exercise? Gathering data, interfacing with the civilians. We need the practice."

"I don't think Bucky wants to be found," Steve said. He'd never actually said it out loud before. 

"So what? Don't tell me you're gonna stop looking. I never thought I'd outlast Captain America."

"You can't force someone to come home."

"You never know what he wants, or what he considers home until you find him."

 

Wanda Maximoff stood out among the new Avengers because of her focus. She was the first one up and training, and the last one to leave at night. She fought fiercely, and took the wins with the losses, and never let any strain show.

Steve knew exactly how much that cost her. He could see her coping with the death of her brother in every single thing she did.

But he could also see that it wasn't quite enough. It showed in how the team interacted. Sam and Rhodey had bonded right away, Natasha had taken Vision under her wing and was teaching him about humanity, but outside of training, Wanda held herself apart. Maybe she didn't know how to interact with others without a shared goal, didn't know how to adapt to a new culture without her brother to help her. 

So Steve started having movie night again. Everyone came, even Natasha, eventually. And Steve found that he enjoyed the night with the team, but with the pressure off. He wasn't the leader of movie night. He was the one who sometimes had to have things explained -- but he wasn't the only one.

Wanda learned about American culture, Vision learned about humans, everyone learned a lot about each other from how they reacted to the stories the movies told.

 

Clint came every month to train the new Avengers' aim, and to consult with Natasha and Steve on weapons training for superheroes. Steve caught him on the way out one month with a question about next month's schedule. They talked, and then Clint glanced toward the waiting car. "Guess you're glad to be going home," Steve said.

Clint smiled that slow smile that meant he was thinking about his wife and kids, then looked at Steve with unusual earnestness. "You know you can always call me if you need me, right? You're not some second best to the farm? The Avengers -- that's home too."

Steve raised his hands. "I wasn't calling that into question," he said.

"I'm just not sure either you or Nat really understand that home can be in more than one place," Clint said. "You don't have to chose. If you do it right, you get to negotiate. Just don't tell Nat that, or I won't have a chance any more."

Steve laughed, which was what Clint wanted.

 

"Did you hear Stark's working on AI again?" Natasha asked Steve. "It's his next big thing, he's going to revolutionize AI like he did the power industry. This time he's after AI powerful enough to save the world, but gentle enough not to harm it in the process."

"He'd better not make any more Ultrons," Steve said.

"He doesn't have an infinity stone any more, but he doesn't give up," Natasha said. "And if he succeeds, we might be glad he did it."

"He'll make us obsolete," Steve joked, looking out at the new Avengers training, imagining them replaced with robots. Robots to fight and die for humanity... But robots didn't die in exactly the same way as humans. Look at Vision.

"Would that be such a bad thing?" Natasha asked. She was testing the waters; Steve didn't think she'd decided for herself yet. "If we didn't have to be the Earth's first defense?"

"We do what needs to be done," Steve said stubbornly.

"Yes. And so does he," Natasha said. "Once an Avenger, always an Avenger, but we don't do the same thing. That's what makes us such a good team. Even Stark."

Steve nodded slowly. "There will always be another fight," he said.

"But every war is fought differently," Natasha countered.

"Sam had an interesting idea about a training exercise," Steve said, changing the subject, but only a little. "And I'd like to know what you think."

After Steve explained that he still wanted to track down Bucky, Natasha looked at him for a very long moment. Then she smiled. "Not giving up on bringing him home, Steve?"

"If I can come home..." Steve said. "Find a place that's home, even if it's not the kind of home I used to know... I just want to share it."

Natasha kept smiling, but something dimmed behind her smile. Steve knew who she was thinking about.

"We can't make them stay," he said. "They have reasons not to come. But we can keep the door open, and never give up."

Natasha's smile quirked, slightly mocking, but not entirely. "It's nice to have hope," she said. Steve couldn't tell whether she meant that just for him, or was willing to include herself in that.


End file.
